Tim McDonnell

Climate Desk Associate Producer

Tim McDonnell joined Climate Desk after stints at Mother Jones and Sierra magazine. He remains a cheerful guy despite covering climate change all the time. Originally from Tucson, Tim loves tortillas and epic walks.

Solar power is taking off in villages where connecting to the grid is seen as a bad joke.

Ruinda Njaba uses his solar panels (visible on the roof behind him) to power up villagers' cellphones. He charges them for 12 cents apiece. Tim McDonnell/Climate Desk

Lusela Murandika just wants to be able to watch the evening news.

The 76-year-old farmer lives in Kanyala village in northern Tanzania, 60 miles from the nearest town that's connected to the electric grid. For years, he's powered a tiny TV set in the dim sitting room of his concrete house here with a diesel generator, spending roughly $10 each month on fuel—money that could otherwise buy more than 20 pounds of rice in a country where the per capita GDP is $695.

Earlier this year, on the advice of friends, he invested $400 in a small, 80-watt solar system. After charging all day under the East African sun, it can run his TV for two hours. The system was a pain in the neck to install, he says, and the battery is unreliable, but it's still an improvement over the generator. And here, as in most of rural Africa, there aren't many options.

"It's a joke to think we'll all be connected to the grid," he says with a rueful grin.

Gulf coast ecosystems were supposed to rebound after the BP oil spill. They haven't.

John Tesvich slices open oysters on the deck of his boat, the "Croatian Pride". Tim McDonnell/Climate Desk

John Tesvich is a fourth-generation oyster farmer in Empire, a tiny Gulf Coast enclave south of New Orleans. He's spent his life working in the rich oyster beds here, the most productive in the nation, and has weathered his share of storms: During Hurricane Katrina, his house ended up under 17 feet of water. But last week, as he navigated his 40-foot oyster boat out into open water, he admitted that the turmoil this region has faced in the last decade was beginning to wear him down.

"A lot has changed over the years," he said. "It seems like one crisis after another sometimes."

One crisis was particularly damaging to Tesvich's industry: The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The fourth anniversary of the busted undersea well's sealing (after it gushed crude into the Gulf for nearly five months) is coming up next week, and Tesvich, who also chairs the oyster industry's main statewide lobbying group, says his crop is still struggling to rebound.

Tesvich got some good news last week, when a federal judge in New Orleans found that BP's "willful misconduct" and "gross negligence" had been the principle causes of the spill, a ruling that could eventually force BP to pay billions for ecological restoration in the Gulf. But for oystermen here, whose day-to-day income depends on these reefs, those dollars still seem very far away.

An oiled bird on Louisiana's East Grand Terre Island after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

News of this morning's federal court decision against BP broke as I was aboard a 40-foot oyster boat in the Louisiana delta, just off the coast of Empire, a suburb of New Orleans.

The reaction: stunned silence. Then a bit of optimism.

"This is huge," said John Tesvich, chair of the Louisiana Oyster Task Force, his industry's main lobby group in the state. "They are going to have to pay a lot more." Standing on his boat, the "Croatian Pride," en route to survey oyster farms, he added: "We want to see justice. We hope that this money goes to helping cure some of the environmental issues in this state."

On Thursday, a federal judge in New Orleans found that the 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster—in which the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, killing 11 people and spilling millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf—was caused by BP's "willful misconduct" and "gross negligence."

Tesvich says he's seen a drastic decline in his company's oyster production since then—company profits down 15 to 20 percent and oyster yields slashed by 30 percent. He says he's suspicious that this new decision will force the kind of action from local politicians needed to clean up the Gulf once-and-for-all. The politicians in Louisiana, he says, "haven't been the best environmental stewards."

BP's own reaction to the news has been fast and pointed. "BP strongly disagrees with the decision​," the company said in a statement on Thursday, published to its website. "BP believes that an impartial view of the record does not support the erroneous conclusion reached by the District Court."

The company said it would immediately appeal the decision.

"It's clear that the apocalypse forecast did not come to pass," said a BP official.

With the fourth anniversary of the busted well's final sealing coming up in a couple weeks, BP has been pushing back aggressively against the company's critics. On Wednesday night—just hours before the court's ruling—Geoff Morrell, the company's vice president of US communications, spoke in New Orleans at the Society of Environmental Journalists conference, and blamed the media and activists for BP's rough ride.

The company's efforts to clean up the spill have been obscured, he said, by the ill-intentioned efforts of "opportunistic" environmentalists, shoddy science, and the sloppy work of environmental journalists (much to the chagrin of his audience, hundreds of environmental journalists).

"It's clear that the apocalypse forecast did not come to pass," he said. "The environmental impacts of the spill were not as far-reaching or long-lasting as many predicted."

Back in 2010, BP's then-CEO Tony Hayward lamented—a month after the explosion—that he wanted his "life back." He didn't find much sympathy at the time. Within a couple months, he resigned out of the spotlight (with a $930,000 petroleum parachute). But his flub didn't retire so easily, and it became emblematic of BP's astonishing capacity for tone-deafness, something Morrell seemed intent on continuing Wednesday.

Morrell said that while "impolitic" remarks had been made by BP officials in the past, the spill's aftermath has been "tough on all of us."

I can only imagine.

I can faithfully report that no rotten tomatoes were hurled during Morrell's talk, and grumbles and cynical chuckles were kept to a polite murmur. But the response on Twitter was more free-flowing:

@BP_plc spox Geoff Morrell not trying to win any friends here at #SEJ2014 Very combattive

Central-West Côte d'Ivoire is a lush agricultural landscape, stuffed with rich banana, rice, and cocoa fields. The region is this West African nation's equivalent of the corn belt of Iowa and Illinois. A long drive down stretches of road left pockmarked by the ongoing rainy season yields endless repetitions of the same scene: Tiny villages—each home to only a few dozen farmers living in thatched-roof huts—quietly tending to crops and livestock. Things are even more peaceful than usual now, as the Muslims that make up this area's dominant religious affiliation celebrate Ramadan.

But as you arrive in Yamoussoukro, the nation's capital, a strange monument can be seen towering over the horizon: An enormous gilded cross that adorns the top of what is, bymanyaccounts, the world's largest church.

Topping St. Peter's Basilica in Rome by more than 80 feet, Basilica Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro, sometimes called the "basilica in the bush," is a jaw-dropping and bizarre monument to the end of a period only a few decades ago when Côte d'Ivoire was competing against other newly-independent African nations to become the cultural and economic powerhouse of the continent.

The basilica is supported by 84 pillars, each one 112 feet tall. Tim McDonnell

The raw numbers are stunning: Between July 1986 and September 1989, 1,100 workers cleared 178 acres of coconut grove, coated the space with 13 football fields-worth of European marble, and erected a 520-foot-tall structure, supported by 128 towering Doric columns, that can accommodate 200,000 worshippers. Inside are 24 stained-glass windows. The organ can reach volumes that lead to permanent hearing loss. The building is estimated to weigh 98,000 metric tons.

But probably the most interesting figure—how much it all cost—is shrouded in mystery: Although independent estimates pegged the price tag at about $300 million, then-President Félix Houphouët-Boigny was notoriously tight-lipped, preferring to refer to the construction as a gift from God (with help from his massive personal cocoa fortune).

"Most people think it also mostly came out of the treasury," says Tom Bassett, a geographer and Côted'Ivoire​ historian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne. For that reason, Bassett says, it got a second nickname: "Our Lady of the Treasury."

The basilica contains 24 massive stained-glass windows, each featuring a biblical scene. In this one, which depicts Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem, former Ivorian president Félix Houphouët-Boigny is shown kneeling in front of Jesus. Tim McDonnell

The wealthy heir to one of the country's largest cocoa operations, Houphouët-Boigny didn't exactly choose the most opportune moment to publicly drain his nation's cash reserves on what quickly came to be seen as less a glorification of God and more a vanity project straight from the "dictator handbook," as the Daily Beast recently put it.

Houphouët-Boigny became Côted'Ivoire​'s first president after the country gained independence from France in 1960 and ruled as a more or less benevolent dictator until his death 1993, overseeing what became known as a "miracle" period of economic prosperity in the 1960s and 70s. In 1983, he named his home village Yamoussoukro the new administrative capital and shortly thereafter set about planning the city's crown jewel, the basilica. In keeping with a request from Pope John Paul II, who said he wouldn't consecrate the building otherwise, the dome was made slightly shorter than St. Peter's. But the addition of a towering cross atop the dome pushed the church above its counterpart in Rome.

The dove at the center of the basilica's dome is 23 feet wide. Tim McDonnell

But meanwhile, by the late 80s the country had fallen to economic ruin, hit simultaneously by a nosedive in cocoa and coffee prices, climbing oil prices, and disastrous mismanagement of state-owned businesses. Midway through the basilica's construction, Côted'Ivoire declared itself insolvent. At the same time, budget-resuscitation measures mandated by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank slashed basic services and key agricultural subsidies, drastically lowering the standard of living for most Ivorians—including those living on farms in the shadow of the basilica.

All this left Houphouët-Boigny wide open to scathing criticism for the unseemly contrast between the church's opulence and the decay of the surrounding countryside; his public image wasn't helped by a large stained-glass window just inside the dome that depicts him kneeling before Jesus on his entrance to Jerusalem. An unnamed Vatican official told Timethat "the size and expense of the building in such a poor country make it a delicate matter." Still, the Pope consecrated the basilica in September 1990, the only time the thousands of seats here have been full (and the only time a grandiose papal residence on the grounds has been occupied).

The interior of the basilica can seat 7,000 worshippers; altogether, the compound can accommodate 200,000. Tim McDonnell

Since then, the basilica has been little more than a tourist destination; services are held weekly but are sparsely attended. In late 2002, while then-President Laurent Gbagbo was out of the country, disgruntled military leaders staged a coup that threw the nation into a bloody, two-year civil war. The basilica briefly came back into the limelight during this period, as Yamoussoukro became the heart of a UN-enforced buffer zone between rebel forces in the north and Gbagbo supporters in the south, where the country's largest city, Abidjan, lies. Political leaders on both sides, aided by the national media, portrayed the conflict in part as one between a Christian south and Muslim north, with the basilica in the middle.

But in reality, Bassett says, demographic data never supported the existence of such a division—there are likely to be just as many Muslims in the south as in the north. And in any case, he says, "I don't think the basilica really fits into that narrative." So sorry, there are no heart-wrenching, The Sound of Music-esque scenes of embattled families taking refuge inside from machine-gun toting soldiers. It's a ghost town, a highly-visible tombstone for a Côted'Ivoire that died before it could be born.

The basilica is situated on the outskirts of Yamoussoukro, former president Félix Houphouët-Boigny's hometown. It was a tiny village before he designated it the nation's administrative capitol in 1983; today it has about 240,000 residents. Tim McDonnell

The compound is spread across 17 acres (equivalent to 13 football fields) of marble imported from Portugal, Spain, and Italy. Tim McDonnell

The world's largest church rarely sees more than a couple hundred worshippers. Tim McDonnell

Epidemiologists explain how human activity helps spread the deadly virus in West Africa.

Health workers teach people about the Ebola virus and how to prevent infection, in Conakry, Guinea, in March.

In a relentless sweep across Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, the largest outbreak of Ebola, a virus that causes dramatic internal bleeding and often a hasty death, has now claimed 467 lives, from 759 infections, since February this year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

With victims identified across more than 60 different locations, there's now a very real risk the outbreak will spread to even more countries, says Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which calls the epidemic out of control.

WHO is now focusing on preparing for the disease's inevitable spread to neighboring countries, not a small ask in poor countries with poor health care systems. "We want other countries in West Africa to be ready—bordering countries, Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal, Guinea Bissau—to prepare themselves in case people affected with the disease may be also traveling," WHO's Dr. Pierre Formenty told a recent briefing in Geneva.

Ebola hemorrhagic fever outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, 2014. Click to see a bigger version. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

In Ivory Coast, Guinea and Liberia's neighbor to the east, federal health officials have joined customs agents at the notoriously porous border in the hope of stopping the disease's spread; meanwhile, MSF has set up isolation centers nearby to contain infected persons if they do appear, says Anne Cugier, MSF's mission chief in that country. "We are all concerned about Ebola potentially spreading to Ivory Coast," she said.

But Ebola is an elusive and very effective assassin, leaving scientists floundering to fit the pieces of the virology puzzle together. The science behind how and why Ebola spreads has yet to be fully nailed down—there's very little surveillance of the early stages of the disease deep in the African forests, where the disease may have been circulating in animals for a long time before "first contact" with humans. In this particular outbreak, it appears that the first diagnosed case was a doctor in the rural town of Gueckedou, whose infection then spread to health workers and family attending his funeral.

Humans are venturing further and further into forests, putting more and more pressure on local ecosystems through mining, deforestation, and conflict.

Researchers believe that butchering and eating infected "bushmeat"—a bat or gorilla, for example—usually serves as the first exposure to diseased animal blood.

Then, ritual funeral rites that involve rubbing down of dead bodies before interment bring relatives and others close to contaminated body fluids, after which Ebola's attack is swift and fatal in up to 90 percent of cases. Symptoms may appear anywhere from 2 to 21 days and include vomiting, diarrhea, and internal bleeding. Unlike the flu, Ebola is not airborne, so you can't get it from an infected person coughing or sneezing near you.

In Ivory Coast, the risk of Ebola transmission from bushmeat, which is a popular menu item at rural maquis—roadside outdoor grills—is considered high enough by federal health officials that it was recently banned altogether. But according to my colleague Tim McDonnell, who is in the country right now, there is no way to enforce the ban, and bushmeat is still being sold and eaten.

What is becoming clearer, however, is that human activity is playing a major role in the initial outbreaks of these zoonotic diseases—those that jump between animal and human—like Ebola. Humans are venturing farther and farther into forests, putting more and more pressure on local ecosystems through small-scale gold and diamond mining, deforestation, and conflict. In remote West Africa, where human populations meet the forests, people are increasingly coming into contact with animals, and that, combined with traditional hunting practices, is driving up the risk of a "spillover" occurring, where Ebola can leap across species.

"I think there are lots of instances of human activities driving spillovers and outbreaks," says Dr. Jonathan Epstein, a veterinary epidemiologist and Ebola expert with EcoHealth Alliance, an international organization of scientists that studies biodiversity and conservation. "While some of these things may be cultural traditions that have persisted for a long time," he says, "some of them are activities that are relatively newer, but intensifying."

DeforestationMelissa Leach, the director of the University of Sussex's Institute of Development Studies, lived for several years in the border forests of Guinea where this latest outbreak first began. She says the forest landscape there is complex and ever-changing—a "mosaic." Villages here are surrounded by forest and agriculture, and that means bats—thought to carry Ebola—are everywhere. "I lived in a house in a village in Kissidougou district for two years which was full of bats in its roof," she says.

Human activity is driving bats to find new habitats amongst human populations. More than half of Liberia's forests—home to 40 endangered species, including the western chimpanzee—have been sold off to industrial loggers during President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's post-war government, according to figures released by Global Witness. Logging, slash-and-burn agriculture, and chopping down trees for an increased demand for fire wood are all driving deforestation in Sierra Leone, where total forest cover has now dropped to just 4 percent, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) which says if deforestation continues at current levels, Sierra Leone's forests could disappear altogether by 2018.

"We see deforestation or incursion into forests, whether it's through hunting or just alteration of landscape, causing people and wildlife to have more contact," says Epstein.

Mining

The 1994 outbreak of Ebola, which killed 31 people, occurred in gold mining camps deep in the rain forest.

The 1994 outbreak of Ebola, which killed 31 people, occurred in gold mining camps deep in the rain forest. Mining also appears to be a feature of this latest outbreak: Its epicenter is in the south east of Guinea, close to iron ore reserves, according to Reuters.

Mining "has become a big livelihood activity across the regions, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, as of the last couple of decades," says Leach. And that means more mines in the forest, but also "immense movement: people going seasonally in and out of mines, coming in and out, young people coming from all over the country." Guinea is the world's top exporter of bauxite, the raw material used in aluminum production, according to Reuters.

"That whole sense of movement is something that means that a disease, an outbreak, once established in a place, is very likely not to stay in that place; it tends to move quite quickly," Leach says.

Iron ore mining boomed in Libera last year, for example, after a surge in public and private investment. According to Bloomberg, the nation gets most of its income from mining with several major international players in the market, alongside smaller gold and diamond mines. The international Monetary Fund said mining spurred a 20 percent growth in GDP in Sierra Leone in 2013, after a flood of investment from British companies in iron ore.

War
Conflict is also driving humans into forested areas. Survivors of Sierra Leone's civil war, which ended in the early 2000s, hid and slept in the forest, according to Human Rights Watch. The movements of refugees have had a lasting impact, says Leach. "There is still a lot of cross-border interaction of people through contacts that were established in the post-war period," she says. A 2010 UNEP report on post-war Sierra Leone also says that in the post-war years, people in this region have become increasingly reliant on the forest animals for food, and wood from trees for fuel and building materials.

Red Cross volunteers carry a coffin containing the remains of an Ebola victim in Kikwit, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1995. That outbreak claimed 250 lives. David Guttenfelder/AP Photo

Climate change
West African countries are already feeling the effects of climate change, the International Food Policy Research Institute noted in a report published last year. There are now more "seasonal droughts, strong winds, thunderstorms, landslides, heat waves, floods, and changed rainfall patterns." All that is changing the forests where Ebola first begins to take hold.

Dry conditions can cause fires, which fragment forests, says Leach. That splitting up of forest increases the likelihood that bats will try to find other places to live, sometimes amongst human populations. Dr. William Karesh, another EcoAlliance epidemiologist, says it's also possible that increasingly frequent extreme weather events also may also play a role in predicting Ebola, but he warns that much of the picture is still left to be filled in by scientists.

Karesh's colleague Jonathan Epstein agrees. "Probably over time wildlife will have to shift habitat or territory in response to changes in food availability or habitat suitability that may in fact may be influenced by climate change," he says. But "as of now there's no real strong direct link."

Ebola in the United States?
In 1989, Ebola was detected in monkeys imported from the Philippines at quarantine facilities in Virginia and Pennsylvania, with no human patients. The following year, the same thing happened again in Virginia and Texas. Four humans developed antibodies, but did not get sick. And then again in 1996 in Texas, monkeys from the Philippines were found to have Ebola, but yet again there were no human infections.

In theory, the current outbreak could could make its way to American soil, most likely via a traveler exposed in West Africa arriving at a US airport, but it's unlikely that its damage would be widespread, says Epstein. That's because of good public health systems that monitor and control diseases in the United States. But where any threat exists, "it speaks to the importance of containing and controlling the outbreak where it's happening, in the countries of origin," he says.